A JSE Fanfic
Part Five: The Choice
[This is part of a small ten-part series I wrote for Halloween 2019. There's a new villain in town, and Jackieboy is on his list. Now arriving at the second location, Jackie finds himself faced with a decision he can't make.]
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2:42am, and Jackie and JJ arrived at the address coded into the video. The place looked like it had been abandoned for a while. It was a long, low building that might’ve been a shop at one point, but wasn’t now, judging by the boarded-up windows and dirty walls.

There was a typed note taped to the front door. It read: "It’s unlocked, should open easily enough. Jackieboy, you go in alone. If your friend comes in as well then you forfeit the game, and the others are gonna be gone."

Jackie was frozen solid, re-reading the note over and over again. He looked over at JJ, who looked back at him. 'You don’t have to do it this way,' JJ signed slowly.

“No, I do.” Jackie shook his head. “I’m not taking a risk with their lives.”

'We can find another way,' JJ signed, his eyes wide and pleading.

“We don’t have time to figure anything out. Every second counts. And besides, I bet he can see everything around this building. Cameras and shit. He’d know.”

JJ didn’t look happy, but he took a step back. 'Please hurry.'

“If I’m not back in…half an hour, then you can maybe come in after me.” After making sure JJ nodded in understanding, Jackie turned to the door. He swallowed nervously. “Wish me luck.”

'Break a leg,' JJ signed tensely.

Jackie didn’t answer. His stomach was jumping too much to even think about talking. He stepped forward, grabbed the doorknob, and was surprised when it turned and opened easily. After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped inside.

The door swung shut behind him. Jackie turned around and tried to open it again, just out of curiosity, only to find the door now locked. “How did you…?” He shook his head. He had no idea how it would do that, but it did, so now he only had to go forward. Quite literally. The dark hallway extending before him had no doors. He reached to the side and found a light switch, flicking it on and watching as lamps with bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling illuminated the run-down walls. At the very end, the hall turned. With nowhere else to go, he started walking.

He reached the turn at the end, and found himself in a rectangular room. The door was on one of the long sides, near the corner where it meant a shorter one. The room was divided in two with a sheet of glass. And pressed against the opposite wall were—

“Oh my god! Chase! Henrik!” Jackie ran forward, pressing his hands against the glass. Chase and Schneep were each tied to a chair with its back against the wall, a vertical divide made of wooden planks between them, preventing them from seeing each other. They were both gagged, so they couldn’t answer when Jackie shouted their names, but they looked over. Chase cried out and immediately started struggling against the ropes. Schneep began jerking his head to the side, where Jackie could see a glass door set in the wall separating him from them. “Hold on, I-I’m coming!” He ran for the glass door.

There was a sudden burst of white noise. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Jackie suddenly stopped running, taking a moment to regain his balance. “Oh, and why not, Mr. I’ll-Hide-My-Face-Like-A-Goddamn-Coward?”

“You call it being a coward, I call it being safe. And this is why not.”

Jackie tensed as a clunking noise came from somewhere above him. Two panels in the ceiling opened up, on the other side of the glass. A strange device was lowered from each, a mess of mechanical parts. It took Jackie a moment to see the long length of metal, ending in a point, extending from each device. “H-hey! Don’t you—” He ran up to the glass and immediately slammed his fist against it. It rebounded, causing him to stagger backwards.

The gamemaster laughed. “It’s plexiglass, you idiot. Shatter-proof. You really think I’d take the chance of you messing up this next part of the game?”

Jackie shook his hand, a snake of fear curling around his heart. “What…next part?”

“It’s very simple. You should see a control panel in the middle of the floor there.” Jackie immediately saw it. His eyes had skipped over it before, obviously more concerned with his friends in peril. But now he took notice. It wasn’t really much of a control panel; there were only two buttons on the surface. “Those buttons have a very simple function. Pressing them will open the door in the plexiglass so you can get to your friend. But they’re also wired up to those spike launchers. I’m sure you know the drill here. Only one of these two will walk of the building with you. Make your choice carefully.”

Jackie’s heart stopped. “You…you mean I press the button and I’ll harpoon my friend?!”

“I mean, if you want to be so blunt about it—”

“No!” Jackie stepped back until he was pressed against the opposite wall. His eyes darted around the room. It was empty except for the chairs, the control panel, the plexiglass, and the spikes. “No, you can’t make me do that!”

The gamemaster laughed. “Oh I think I can! You see, the launchers are also remote-controlled from my location. If you don’t choose one, then they both die.”

Jackie screamed, suddenly running forward and punching the plexiglass hard enough for him to rebound backwards and fall flat on his back. He climbed back up, the gamemaster still laughing. On the other side of the glass, Chase had gone very still, before suddenly intensifying his struggles. Schneep’s eyes were very wide, but he wasn’t moving. “You can’t!” Jackie shouted. “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t do this! You said they’d be fine if I solved your stupid puzzles in the time limit!”

“Did I ever tell you that you’d get all of them back? Nope! I just said that if you took too long, or got help from anyone else, then they’d die. I never said they wouldn’t die anyway.”

“Liar! LIAR!” Jackie could only pull his hair and shake his head. His eyes were threatening to spill over with tears. “I-I can’t do this. I-I can’t, don’t make me choose. Please don’t make me choose.”

“Well, you have to. That’s the only way to open the door.” The gamemaster sighed. “This is taking too long. You have five minutes to press a button, or else I’ll set both launchers off. Starting now. Tick, tock.”

“Shit!” Jackie gasped. His head whipped up, looking at the others on the other side of the plexiglass. Chase was still struggling, but now he was doing his best to gesture over to Schneep. Schneep meanwhile, caught Jackie’s eyes. His head jerked to the side, pointing at Chase.

In that moment, Jackie felt his heart crack a bit. God, why did both of them have to be like this? This wasn’t easy to begin with, but now he had to be reminded of how wonderful and loving both of them were, both willing to give up for the other.

He paced the floor, continuing to pull and play with his hair. A constant flow of mutterings escaped his mouth, everything along the lines of “Okay, okay, okay, this is happening, you have to, fuck, this is happening, okay, you have to, why, shit, fuck.” How could anyone make a decision like this?! This kind of sick twisted trick was only supposed to happen in movies and comic books. But here it was. He was holding the lives of his best friends in his hands.

He forced himself to calm down, and think through the swirl in his mind. From a logical perspective, Schneep was the better option. He was a doctor who could save many lives in the future, and if he was thinking short-term instead of long-term, Schneep was better at puzzles and trivia. But Jackie wasn’t purely logical. He thought about Chase’s kids, who were so dependent and loving. He thought about how if he chose Schneep, the last thoughts in Chase’s head would be how he wasn’t good enough to be saved.

Jackie stopped pacing and walked over to the control panel. One of the buttons had a picture of Chase, the other a picture of Schneep. Wait…if he pressed the one with their face did that mean it would save them or kill them? Oh fuck. Jackie pressed his hands to his eyes, taking deep breaths. The muffled cries the others were making sounded unnaturally loud in his ears. He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t decide. But if he didn’t, then they’d both die.

“You have one minute left.”

Jackie jumped and looked up. Chase was panicking, shaking his head, and Jackie could see tears forming even from here. Schneep looked calmer, his eyes staring into nothing.

He couldn’t do it. But he had to.

Jackie squeezed his eyes shut, and with a half-strangled cry coming from deep in his throat, he slammed a hand down onto the control panel, pressing one of the buttons down. He cracked open an eye to see his hand had landed on the button with Schneep’s picture.

“Well I think you missed the point,” the gamemaster said in a bitter tone. “But it works. And hey, at least HE'LL get the point.” Slightly manic laughter. “Get it?”

The launcher in front of Schneep whirled to life.

“No! No!” Jackie pressed his face to the plexiglass and pounded it with his fist. “Henrik! Henrik, I’m sorry!”

Schneep met Jackie’s eyes. He tilted his head to the side, then glanced downward before looking back up. Then his eyes closed.

The launcher fired. There was a splash of red. Jackie stumbled back, covering his mouth.

The door in the plexiglass beeped, then opened.

Jackie screamed into his hand. He tore his eyes away from the scene before him, stumbling towards the now open door. Everything was frozen. Everything was broken and bleached, and the only thing he could do was get to Chase. Get to Chase, get him out of here, and maybe the world will resume its normal course.

Chase had his eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from their corners. He was still struggling against the ropes binding him to the chair, though the struggles were weaker now. Jackie stopped by the chair and practically fell to his knees. “Hey. Buddy. I’m here, you’re getting out of here, I got you.” Assurances were falling from his mouth automatically while his hands were pulling at the gag in Chase’s mouth. Until finally, it came loose.

“J-Jackie?” Chase’s voice sounded so small. “What happened? What—is Henrik…?”

“Don’t look over there,” Jackie said dully. He was now working on the ropes tying Chase’s arms to the arms of the chair. “Don’t look, it’s going to be fine.”

Chase didn’t listen. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward Schneep, but the wooden barrier blocked his view. Tears started falling in force. “He’s—h-he’s—he’s d—isn’t he?”

“Don’t look, it’s going to be okay.” Jackie wished he could offer something more. But he was working on autopilot. Not even that, it felt like someone else was piloting. Someone else was untying Chase’s legs and telling him it’s going to be okay. Someone else was pulling Chase to his feet and letting him lean on his shoulder. Someone else was walking back through the room, partially covering Chase’s eyes as he sobbed, and following the hall back to the front door that was now unlocked again.

Jameson was pacing the sidewalk in front of the building nervously, rubbing his arms against the cool autumn breeze. When the door opened and Jackie and Chase staggered out, he stopped and ran up to them. 'Is everything alright?' he asked. He looked back and forth between Chase, crying, and Jackie, staring dully into space. 'What’s wrong? What happened?'

Jackie looked at Jameson. “Henrik’s dead.”

Jameson stared. 'What?'

“Henrik’s dead.” Saying the words made it real. Jackie’s eyes filled with tears, and then overflowed. “The guy—the sick fuck who set this up, h-he gave me a choice between—I d-didn’t even look, I couldn’t, I just pressed a button—I killed him. He’s dead.”

Jameson took a step backwards. He shook his head in disbelief, looking back and forth between Chase and Jackie like he was expecting them to tell him it was all just a joke. But when they didn’t, his expression broke. He turned and walked away, vanishing into the alley next to the building. and then there came the sound of trash cans clattering, falling against the ground, things being thrown against walls and slammed into bricks. When you couldn’t scream, you had to find other ways to make your pain clear.

Chase was still sobbing, leaning into Jackie’s shoulder like his legs couldn’t support him. Jackie eased him to the ground, now leaning against the wall of the building.

And then, from inside the building. “I suggest you don’t take too much time. You’re still on a deadline, you know.”

Jackie whirled around and shouted through the open door. “Shut the fuck up you bastard! One of my best friends is dead now! Our friend is dead! You can’t show a little bit of sympathy, you heartless sociopath?!”

“Trust me, it’s in your best interest to finish the next set of puzzles quickly,” the gamemaster said calmly. “I hate to put a time limit inside a time limit, but…well, actually I don’t. It makes the whole thing a lot more interesting.”

Jackie’s anger suddenly turned to ice. “What do you mean?”

“Check your email, Jackieboy,” the gamemaster said smugly. “And you’ll see why you need to hurry.”

Jackie paled to a ghost-like shade. He spun around. Shit, he didn’t lose the laptop, did he? No, the box was sitting on the sidewalk calmly. Jameson, now walking out of the alley, scooped it up. I heard that, he signed, tucking the box under his arm. 'You don’t think he’s saying…something will happen to Marvin if we’re not quick?'

“I think that’s exactly what he’s saying,” Jackie said quietly.

Sitting on the sidewalk, Chase wiped his eyes with his arm and sniffed. “W-well… then we’d better hurry, shouldn’t we?”

Jackie nodded. Once, and then again very quickly. Compartmentalize. Deal with the urgent situation first, then…“Let’s get out of here.” He reached down and grabbed Chase by the hand, pulling him to his feet. “I’ve had enough of this place.”

The other two nodded in agreement. Then the three of them walked down the street, determinedly not looking back. The silence was heavy on their backs.
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